Questions
by Swishy Willow Wand
Summary: “It’s crazy, really, Alice. Completely unimportant. Random, really. And it’s not like I think about him often, Alice, really I don’t. It’s just…has his hair always done that...that thing?” [LJ] [Oneshot]


**Author: Swishy Willow Wand**

**Title: Questions**

**Summary: "It's crazy, really, Alice. Completely unimportant. Random, really. And it's not like I think about him often, Alice, really I don't. It's just…has his hair always done that- that thing?" (L/J) (One-shot)**

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**-ATTENTION-**

**SuperBall- small, round, rubber ball that bounces like crazy all around the place. (Especially when thrown with all your strength...)**

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**What can I say? I have a Lily/James fetish. And I think Alice deserves a starring role for just once. So tell me what you think!**

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**Disclaimer: My owning total pretty much comes to nadda.**

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**Questions**

"Can I ask you a question?"

Alice Pritchards, seventeen-year-old witch, annoyingly blonde, and best friend to Lily Evans wasn't used to hearing that from her aforementioned greatest mate. Lily wasn't one for questions, nor was she one for asking for permission.

Alice was not one to pass up the chance at a new experience. "No, absolutely not," she deadpanned, not looking up from her very lengthy, very pulled-from-her-arse Potions essay.

In soft response, sounding very disappointed indeed, she heard a breathy, "Oh." She rolled her eyes.

"Honestly, you twit, of course you can ask me a question. Gods!" She threw down her quill and focused attentively on the girl lounging on, oddly enough, the floor, her fiery red hair splayed about her shoulders, her green eyes counting the bumps on the ceiling.

Lily blushed, and her eyes moved swiftly from the ceiling to Alice's face. "You cow," she retorted.

Alice grinned. "You flatter me, Lily darling, honestly. But there was a question…?"

Lily blushed once more. An unfortunate habit, Alice decided. Poor red-headed thing. Thank the goddesses of hair and complexions for making her pale and blonde, and entirely unblushing.

"It's crazy, really, Alice. Completely unimportant. Random, really. And it's not like I think about _him_ often, Alice, really I don't. It's just…"

Alice perked up upon hearing the word 'him' uttered from her best friend's mouth. Lily wasn't a great supporter or fraternizer with the male gender as a whole, and she was quite interested to see who Lily had _not_ been thinking about.

She waited semi patiently for Lily to finish her sentence, and was rewarded with a fat lot of utter confusingness.

"Has his hair always done that- that thing?"

"Has whose what always done what sort of thing?" she asked, utterly confused. Alice didn't often like to describe herself as confused. It sounded much too out-of-control for her liking. But this was Lily. And who, she would very much like to know, in heaven, hell, or Hogwarts could control _the_ Lily Evans? Lily was a bouncing ball of craziness, cockiness, and spontaneity, quite similar to a Muggle SuperBall. For Merlin's (admittedly old and dead) sake, the girl had gotten pneumonia in her third year after dancing around barefooted during the first snowfall of the season like an incredible imbecile! Alice sometimes wondered if Lily herself had any control over her impulsive actions.

So yes, Alice decided, just this once confused was a very fitting word.

Lily blushed once more, and she decided that she must, must, must find more out about this mysterious him.

"Has _his_ hair always done that thing? That messy, flippy-outty thing?"

Alice squinted her eyes in thought, acutely aware of the fact that she most likely resembled a monkey's backside at the present moment.

"Okay, well, I get the hair, and I get the unattractive-sounding messy, flippy-outty thing, but what I'm not getting is the- well, is the 'him' part."

Lily sat straight up and glared at her dearest, most devoted friend, and Alice beamed at her in pure innocence.

"Honestly, you twat," she snapped, bringing up her knees and wrapping her arms around them, resting her chin upon her, rather bony, in Alice's opinion, kneecaps. "_Him_. _The_ him. The _only _him. What other _him_ would there be?"

Alice grinned, not to be put off by her friend's tetchy sounding voice. "You mean Merlin?" She laughed quite openly at the disgruntled, contemplating-violence look on the pretty girl's face. "Just kidding, Lily-bean. Obviously you're talking about James Potter." She paused for a second, then nodded. "Yes, I think his hair _has_ always done that messy, flippy-outty thing." She shook her head. "It's looks much more attractive then it sounds, yeah?"

Lily flushed scarlet, and Alice made a memo to herself, trying to remember to look up two or three potions to bring about the end of dear Lily's regrettable blushing habit.

"Honestly, Alice," the red-faced girl scolded. "Did you have to say his name aloud?"

Alice smiled innocently. "Whose name? Oh- you mean, James Potter's?" She raised her voice a decibel or two (or ten) on the last two words, and grinned in satisfaction at the mortified look on Lily's face. "So you did mean his name," she mused teasingly. "Sorry, Lils, won't happen again."

Lily looked less then a second away from throttling her, and Alice decided to take her teasing down a half a peg, maybe even a whole one.

"It's alright, Lily!" she exclaimed reassuringly. "What sort of idiot would be roaming about at this hour? It's three-forty-seven in the morning, and I assure you, we are the only ones in the entire school who would ever procrastinate over doing their school work for this long. We're the only poor souls who see the exciting night life of the Gryffindor tower."

Lily glanced around the silent, dim common room in faint, grudging amusement. "You're an ass, Alice," she muttered, dropping back down onto the floor, her uncommonly hard head making a very loud 'thunk'ing sound as it hit the carpet.

Alice rolled her eyes once more, and rolled away the dreadful Potions essay, pulling out a half-finished Herbology one. Silence reigned in the room for a few minutes, Alice scribbling away and Lily tapping her foot, pulling at the carpet absentmindedly with her fingers.

"Can I ask you another question, Alice?"

Alice grinned, not looking up from her work. "Of course you can, Lily, light of my life. We've got nothing better to do, have we?"

Lily snorted. "Actually, sleep sounds much more preferable to having you mercilessly tease me. But as long as it's okay, I think I will."

There was a small silence, and Alice was beginning to get bored. Luckily for her, so was Lily.

"Has he always been that tall, Alice? Because he's very, very tall, have you noticed?"

Alice grinned. "Yes, I've noticed, Lily. And no, he actually hasn't been that tall forever. In first through fourth years, he was a right little midget. But yes, in the recent years, it has been quite normal for him to be that tall."

Lily rolled her eyes, grinning against her will. "Has he always been so funny? Because, honestly, Alice, he's so funny when he's talking to the prefects. He can do the strangest things with his face…"

Alice couldn't help but notice the more-than-slightly fond tone in her best friend's voice, and she highly doubted she was thinking about the prefects.

"He is quite funny, Lily, yes. And his face is oddly like rubber, isn't it, the way it can stretch and distort itself?"

Lily nodded. "Yes, strange." She paused and added blushingly, "…but not entirely unattractive."

Alice snorted. "No, not entirely, I don't suppose."

Lily shook her head dreamily, absently. "Nope."

Alice rolled her eyes. Lily in love (or possibly just lust) was an entirely new concept for her. It was quite interesting, really. Like a train wreck, she supposed. Loud and screeching and rare, both parties trying their hardest to stop it.

It was fascinating, to be quite honest. Alice found herself unable to look away. Mentally, that is. She found that there were far more attractive things to look at then Lily Evans and James Potter and their upcoming collision. (Like that Longbottom bloke. Frank, was it? He was scrumptious. The perfect cross between awkward and adorable.)

Tentatively, and quite inconveniently interrupting Alice's sudden, sporadic thought processes, Lily asked, "Has he always been so-"

Alice groaned. "As sweet as this all is, Lily darling, it's also quite annoying. Yes, he's always been that dreamy, and yes, he's always had hazel eyes, and yes, yes, yes! He has, in fact, always been that incredibly bony."

She stood up and closed her books, tossing them into her bag.

"Now," she said, walking over to the staircase, "I'll be going to bed now. And you'll stop talking about James now. Because, yes, Lily, you do like him. And yes," she added grinningly, before her friend could utter a word, "He does like you very, very much."

"Gods," she continued, walking slowly up the stairs, her voice fading out of Lily's earshot. "Questions, questions, questions. Like I'm a bloody crystal ball."

She walked into her dormitory, dropped her books beside her trunk, and flopped into bed, drawing the curtains closed.

Now, where had she been?

Ah, yes…awkward and adorable…

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End file.
